Selling on OEM software?

ubersonic · 24 Apr 2012 at 11:52

Bit of a weird one this, A number of years ago we purchased a bunch of Acer Veriton atom based net tops for light office use (Outlook, Word, Excel and IE). Each machine came preloaded with XP Professional for which the was a key on the machine. However the was an offer on at the time "buy this and get a free upgrade to Windows 7 when its released" which means we were eventually able to claim on this and received several copies of Windows 7 32bit Professional Upgrade OEM which is where we are now.

They are useless to us as these machines will never be upgraded from XP (they may be upgraded to 8 depending on performance and if the finished version of 8 is improved over the beta, but never to 7) so we were thinking of selling them but are unsure about the legality as they are OEM software and I remember reading something about OEM/retail differences and keys, each disc has its own legit key the sticker for which is on the cardboard sleeve it comes in and they have never been used.

Any thoughts/advice?

PhillyDee · 24 Apr 2012 at 12:01

No, you cannot sell them on.

WYNIR0 · 24 Apr 2012 at 12:04

PhillyDee said:
No, you cannot sell them on.

This

CaptainCrash · 24 Apr 2012 at 12:29

Nope, OEM licences are tied to the original machine, and that goes for upgrades as well.

Out of interest, why wouldn't you take advantage of a free upgrade to Windows 7? It should run OK on Atom PCs, provided they have a reasonable amount of RAM...

ubersonic · 24 Apr 2012 at 13:10

CaptainCrash said:
Nope, OEM licences are tied to the original machine, and that goes for upgrades as well.

I thought this, but their not tied to any machine yet hence the confusion, they just as they would be had we ordered them off a site along with some components.

CaptainCrash said:
Out of interest, why wouldn't you take advantage of a free upgrade to Windows 7? It should run OK on Atom PCs, provided they have a reasonable amount of RAM...

XP does everything that is wanted/needed on the systems, the only thing 7 would add is lag.

CaptainCrash · 24 Apr 2012 at 13:25

ubersonic said:
I thought this, but their not tied to any machine yet hence the confusion, they just as they would be had we ordered them off a site along with some components.

As I understand it, they will be tied, as they're specifically licensed to upgrade your original OEM installations, so the OEM T&Cs are inherited... not the same as buying an upgrade licence off-the-shelf as it were.

ubersonic said:
XP does everything that is wanted/needed on the systems, the only thing 7 would add is lag.

Fair enough, but don't forget XP will be EOL in a couple of years, whereas 7 will have extended support until 2020. On the other hand, your machines are old and it might not make sense to shell out again for Win 8 licences, rather than wait until you upgrade your hardware and get 8 preinstalled.

Jak3 Mac · 25 Apr 2012 at 08:02

No, you can't

edscdk · 25 Apr 2012 at 08:23

CaptainCrash said:
Nope, OEM licences are tied to the original machine, and that goes for upgrades as well.

...

he says the machines are still windows XP,

So i assume he has several w7 upgrade disks / serials that are not attached to anything...

so I assume he can sell me or anyone else the disks as long as he also sells a bit of hardware with them.?

Banzai_Joe · 25 Apr 2012 at 08:29

It breaks the EULA, but it wouldn't stop someone else from using the disk to upgrade their xp machine, meaning the upgrade isn't key tied to a specific pc. It is 'supposed' to live and die on the machine it was orignally meant for.

CaptainCrash · 25 Apr 2012 at 09:19

edscdk said:
he says the machines are still windows XP,

So i assume...

so I assume...

Since we're "assuming", I assume the T&Cs of his *OEM* upgrade licences only entitle him to upgrade the *orginal OEM* XP machines, and were provided free of charge by the supplier on that basis. That being the case, even though the upgrade licences are as yet unused, you'd be in breach of contract by using them to upgrade entirely different machines, just as if you tried to transfer the original XP OEM licences to different hardware.

Personally I couldn't give a monkey's what people do with their OEM licences, and I doubt if there would be any practical difficulty in re-using them in this case, but you'd need read the fine print of both the MS EULA and the customer's contract with the supplier to know exactly what they can or can't do from a legal POV, "assuming"

neither are trumped for example by the Unfair Contract Terms Act.